As more and more companies offer telephone access to their customer service, sales and support staffs, problems associated with waiting on hold have grown. Such problems include, for example, excessively long waits, full queues that can not accept additional callers, and accidental disconnects. These problems have engendered a high level of frustration and ill will amongst callers. Some companies now routinely inform calling customers on hold how long a current wait is expected to last before a service representative will be available to take the call.
Some companies offer various levels of speed-of-answer services to their customer base. This is especially important where time-on-hold can tie up valuable business activities of the caller. Thus, a company might offer one telephone number for service which guarantees no more than a five-minute wait, and another less expensive number which guarantees that an agent will be available in no more than a 15 minute wait. Incoming callers are thus charged more for the shorter response guarantee time than for calls with a longer response guarantee time.
To implement an automatic call answering/queuing system of the type described above, manufacturers offer a range of products. Ordinarily, automatic call answering systems include a private branch exchange (PBX) which processes an incoming call and identifies the number dialed via a dialed number identification service function (DNIS). Once that information is stored, the PBX checks a routing database for DNIS routing instructions and routes the call to an automatic call distributor (ACD). The ACD logs each call in memory and assigns each call a rank, based on the order in which the call arrived. If there are currently N calls in a queue, the ACD normally assigns a next call received from the PBX to position N+1 in the queue.
When the PBX indicates to the ACD that an agent is available to answer a call, the call resident at the top of the queue in the ACD is removed and sent to the PBX, which takes the corresponding incoming line off hold and routes the call to the available agent. The ACD then moves up each call in the queue and the process continues.
If the system is provided with an automatic voice response capability, it includes an interactive voice response unit (IVRU). The IVRU is utilized to intermittently communicate with incoming callers, indicating position in the queue and waiting time until the call is expected to be answered.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,095 to Morganstein et al. describes a call processing apparatus which queues calls that are waiting to be connected to a service position. The apparatus calculates a queue position and wait time and transmits the queue data to the calling party. U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,774 to Friedes describes an interactive queuing system for a call center and collects initial information from the caller while the call is in the holding queue. The information input by the caller enables the apparatus to query a database and to retrieve additional information needed to service the call. That information is then displayed to a next available agent as the call is received by that agent.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,561,707 to Katz describes a telephone interface system which is adapted to select or qualify a set of callers, acquire data from the callers in the set and statistically analyze the acquired data. U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,715 to Lee describes an automatic call distributor system wherein calls waiting in a queue are informed of expected wait time until connection to an agent. The announcements are periodically updated to reassure customers that they are progressing in the queue. The customers are also given the opportunity to leave a message if they do not wish to wait in the queue.
While the prior art describes a method for enabling a caller to arrange, prior to a call, for access to a priority queuing arrangement, there is need for a system which will enable a caller to alter his/her position in a phone queue. For instance, a caller's data processing system may have become inoperative, resulting in a virtual shutdown of the related business. Applicants know of no provision in the prior art for enabling a caller who is placed in a phone queue to arrange for any movement within the queue.